Colour in the Roses
by AuthenticAussie
Summary: Tears gleam on Chopper's cheeks as Luffy kneels next to him in the snow and whispers, "They're the most beautiful colour you can imagine. And when you can see it, I'll find us an island where the cherry blossoms bloom the same shade that they do here." When, not if, he thinks as Chopper turns wide and teary eyes on him, and when he offers a grin, Chopper hesitantly grins back.


Colour is indescribable.

Sabo's eyes glitter as he tries to tell tales of what he thinks it will make the world look like, and Luffy can't help but watch in fascination as his hands fly and the edges of wistfulness are shown in his eyes.

They're dark blue.

Like the colour of his hat, and his coat, and the sea. Dark blue and wonderful, deep and shining as he eagerly describes to Luffy everything he can think of about colour. Ace hits Luffy over the head for asking again, but nothing can dull the adoration he feels when his older brother is _glowing _with the passion he feels when he talks about love.

He knows Sabo's parents never found colour in each other, and may not've at all, and maybe that was why Sabo was always so desperate for it. He doesn't mind sitting and listening to all the myths Sabo can weave, though he thinks some of them are a little wrong, because he can already see colour and he's not in love with anyone but his brothers.

"There's too many people in the world and the seas are too wide to ever hope you'll find your colour," Ace chides, a touch of anger and a touch of desperation in his voice, and Luffy holds his tongue because this conversation would only flow as it always does, a river winding through familiar arguments.

He doesn't say that Ace makes rubies gleam and glitter, or that Sabo turned the oceans gorgeous and deep. He knows they won't understand it.

* * *

><p>Nami's colour came in slowly, like rain dripping onto her precious tangerines, and it's only when the flickers of orange finally solidify on her trees that he realises she's finally, wonderfully, happy.<p>

His grin feels almost too wide on his cheeks, and he wants to pick one and show her, but Sanji kicks him for trying.

As soon as he'd seen Sanji feed the starving pirate, he'd known the cook was to be his – that yellow had burst to life and made the whole world seem brighter just became the icing on the cake.

He lands by Usopp, squashes his hat further on his head, and regards his sniper carefully. Usopp fidgets under the sudden scrutiny, his fishing line bobbing in the water, but he offers a smile that Luffy gladly returns. Usopp was a mute, dark green, like the colour on his overalls. It seems to shift constantly, like it's not decided what to do with itself.

Sometimes it's dark and gloomy – like he's viewing it through fog, but other times Usopp's colour is like the leaves on Nami's tangerine trees, sunlight gleaming through their slender veins and dappling the grass beneath them.

The moments when it becomes muted are the moments when Luffy goes to find him – letting him take comfort in the feeling of solidarity and silence and the knowledge that the person he has chosen to follow may be powerful and world-changing, but it was _him _who'd been chosen first.

Zoro, on the other hand, doesn't have a colour at all.

No matter how many times he forces his gaze to go backwards and forwards over his swordsman, like his eyes need to be refreshed of the sight, nothing new flickers into his eyes. It's a sour disappointment, bitter on his tongue, but he'll bite it back because he knows he'll get it someday.

Because Zoro is his, no matter that he has no colour at all, Luffy chose him and Zoro joined him at the very start, and Zoro is _his._

* * *

><p>When Miss Wednesday shows up, Luffy almost giggles in glee, because she lights up his whole <em>ship!<em>

Beneath his feet the wood turns brown; a deep, golden, sun-kissed colour he is immediately enamoured with. Her bird, too, gains that gold colour to his feathers.

When she confesses to being a princess, though he can feel his crew's suspicions, he eagerly agrees to take her aboard the Merry.

He wonders if anyone else has ever seen colours the way he sees them, when they glow to life in his vision, slowly filling in the greys to the world like it were in a child's picture book. He wonders if, if he ever thought to ask, would his crew admit to seeing the colourful flickers at the corner of their eyes as the love he wants to give to them changes how they view the world.

* * *

><p>Chopper gives him <em>two <em>colours, though one he was slow to realise, but it makes him even _more _special than Luffy'd originally thought he was.

Snow glitters, white and soft and fluffy looking, and that's all he thinks Chopper's given him, at first, but as they head towards the Merry the snows change to a gorgeous pink flush he knows Chopper's the cause of.

The whole mountain glows with it, and that colour seems to seep into Chopper's hat, too. It turns the same shade as the cherry blossoms blooming above Drum mountain.

Tears gleam on Chopper's cheeks as Luffy kneels next to him in the snow and whispers, "They're the most beautiful colour you can imagine. And when you can see it, I'll find us an island where the cherry blossoms bloom the same shade that they do here."

_When, not if_, he thinks as Chopper turns wide and teary eyes on him, and when he offers the reindeer a grin, Chopper hesitantly grins back.

* * *

><p>He knows why Vivi is brown-and-gold now – it's the same colour of the sand in her desert kingdom, and though he hates the sand getting into his sandals and the burning heat, he still laughs to think of her expression should he tell her.<p>

Of course, before the words are even fully formed, he remembers trying to tell Ace that he turned the fire bright, or Sabo that he made the oceans even more beautiful, so he holds his tongue and sighs to think of when he'll be able to see his friends' eyes light up as their world does.

He thinks Nami's has, already, by the way she smiles just so slightly at the sight of Vivi, but Vivi has had colour for a long time.

He knows, pretty honestly, because she can match her clothes, and always hesitates when seeing that Sanji has done something peculiar and is dressed like the contents of the closet were upchucked on him.

She merely covers a tiny smile with one hand, however, and her eyes turn down at the edges like she's remembering something. He tries to make her happy when that happens, does something that he knows is a bit silly just to make her smile, and she's distracted long enough to forget.

Luffy knows what it feels like, to have the person (people, in his case, and maybe it's twice as bad because they're both so important but both ultimately unreachable) who gave you colour so far away.

* * *

><p>The blue is lasting, lasting, lasting, and so he practically cries, "Sabo's still alive, Ace! He is, he is, I know he is!"<p>

But Ace turns on him, snaps like the words are straining every inch of him over hot coals, "Would you just shut _up _Luffy!?"

Because Ace has never seen colour the way he does, so he doesn't believe it when Luffy says he's still alive-

And then one day there's no more deep-sea blues to make the oceans shimmer, but it lasted, _it lasted_-

Except now they've faded like part of an old photograph until the colours are all gone again, and that's when he really, truly does cry because he can feel something delicate and small shatter in his chest at the sight of the oceans slowly draining of colour.

* * *

><p>He thinks he saw something new flicker in the corner of his eyes the other day, but when he looks again everything is still picture book half-coloured, with gaps still in places he wants to see.<p>

Nami and Usopp's eyes–

Zoro's swords.

Sometimes Sanji's shirt is almost coloured, but it's never vibrant like the rest of the colours are and it fades soon enough.

* * *

><p>He doesn't see Miss All Sunday at first, but when the building caves in around them, he notices that the shirt she wears is a deep, secret colour.<p>

And she wants to die; her body is heavy and her words are desperate, exhausted and miserable though they don't waver at all. He blabs, words falling from his mouth because this woman seems to exude an aura of sadness, and he doesn't want that, not for her.

When she joins his crew and tries to make it seem as though he wouldn't have offered should he have found her again, he lets her believe.

And after a while Robin has become a part of his crew as surely as Nami did, and so when she asks he tells her.

He tells her of how the colours he sees are fluid and varied, but all of them aren't there yet, which leaves his world looking almost out of place.

He tells her how everyone says it's _one _person who will light up your world so completely, but Vivi lit up Nami's and Nami would still find her perfect person, but she just won't be able to tell as easy.

And he tells her how he's never really seen the point behind having a romance because his friends were all he really needed, and that's why they were the ones to light up his world with colours and not anyone else, and that made sense, right?

Because they were his, they were his and he wouldn't ever stop loving them, and to think of them in pain causes an agony to flare up in his chest, and a fierce determination to burn through his body.

He will protect these people, even if he has to give up his very life for them – because Luffy has found and lost colour before, and he won't have these ones leave him either.

He tells her that she is important to him too, in a way that only the most important people are; pure vibrancy and unwashed colour, and sees just the barest flicker of surprise on her face over the cover of her book.

He grins, and doesn't tell her what her colour is – he knows she'll have fun guessing it.

* * *

><p>Words that taste heavy and bitter and <em>wrong <em>still collect on the table between them, gathered by the ring of solemn faces – but he will say them because Merry cannot carry them anymore, and she will have to be left behind; and he looks forwards because there is nothing left for him to learn from the past. He will live his life with no regrets, and to think about things he may've done differently is to regret them.

He doesn't hit back when Usopp punches him, but he won't take it, either.

There are raised voices, anger vibrant in his sniper's words, and then they are fighting and he doesn't want to he doesn't want to he _doesn't want to-!_

But he pulls his fist back and fights anyway, as the sun sinks slowly over the edge of the horizon, taking the light and warmth of day with it. Because he is the captain, because Usopp needs to let go of the past so he can walk forwards, because living with one arm still hooked around Merry's mast like it is an anchor to the past will only drag him down till he drowns.

His hat shadows his eyes when Usopp is finally laid flat and doesn't get up again-

And it's almost like it snaps.

One minute, he can pick out the green on Nami's trees, and the next-

It's gone.

He doesn't admit that he is almost desperate enough to turn around and carry Usopp with him, just to get it back, but like he knows how the sea will betray him should he ever fall in, he knows that nothing will fix the sudden expanse that is now between them.

They are important to each other like the sky and the sea are; close and mirrored, but like the sea and the sky they are free, and as of now, they cannot ever touch-

Like the sky and the sea.

(_You are no longer as important to him as you want to be._)

* * *

><p>Franky flares everything electric blues, bright and <em>loud <em>and it suits him so well that when he stands with them as they face against Enies Lobby, Luffy can feel his grin stretch wider and wider, because how could anything go wrong on so beautiful a day?

He will rescue Robin (a granted, even if she screams at him for him to leave,) and they will get off this stupid island, and then every step after he will take one at a time, because there may be other problems to deal with, but he has never lived in the future – the present is his moment, and in the present he sees how Robin cries and screams that she wants to live and he feels his head nod just slightly.

_Okay, _he thinks, as his heart goes, _I promise that I will never leave you behind, I promise I will save you, I promise that I will keep you safe, Robin._

_I promise that we will continue to live!_

* * *

><p>The notes that filter through the fog bring to mind something that shines, clear and calm and light, but in a different way from Franky's – these notes pop in his head like the stars fading from the sky in hour before the morning, when everything is dark and the world is quiet and still, seeming almost empty.<p>

And before his crew has even realised it, he has brought aboard a skeleton who sings and plays silver from his violin, and makes the slight edges where colour blurs to grey sharp and clear, like strings cutting them out of place.

* * *

><p>"What did you <em>do?" <em>He can't help but ask, because Zoro came back to him beaten and bloody but won't say a single word; because he can't.

And now Luffy can see that his colour is white; Wado's sheath, the slight sliver of silver from Shuushi, the colour of his shirt beneath the layer of dried blood and dirt.

And he thinks that even if before, even if Zoro hadn't given a hint of colour, he knew that Zoro would be _his – _would stay _his – _but now?

Now, he can't help but think that he would give away every single colour he could see if it just meant that his swordsman would come back to him.

_Please, _he begs, watches the wheeze of Zoro's chest struggling to rush and fall, dragging up every exhilarated rush he'd felt when he'd first seen the colours of his crew and feeling like if he could he would shove it as an offering into Zoro's heart to give him strength, _if I gave them all away would you give him back to me?_

* * *

><p><em>Breathe, <em>his mind absently tries to remind him, because it is something that he has forgotten how to do in this moment, and the stones around him are slowly fading from dark grey to blue, and God, oh God-

The goggles, the coat, the top hat and the crinkle at the corner of his eyes when he smiled- (_familiar ache, nestled low in his chest a pang he'd not forgotten, just suppressed under the memories and the new family he'd built for himself_)

Luffy surprises himself by sobbing, as the tiny slivers of the sky brighten until they are _blue _again, and he has no idea what to do, truthfully.

Because everything screams at him that this is _Sabo_, but there is a ruthless, cruel growl in the back of his head that says,

_'There was no blue at all. Not for a single moment did the ocean come back for all of how many years? How many nights did you want for the sky to have lit up again when you woke up, and how many years did it stay grey?'_

_Breathe, _he reminds himself, harshly, and this time the air tastes acidic but he still can't help but try and grin because no matter if the colour of the ocean never came back for so many years, he was back _now-_

And oh God, did Luffy miss being able to see the sea.

* * *

><p>They are important like the sky and the sea, wild and free and untouchable, but Luffy can now see how the sky meets the sea on the horizon, leading them to their next adventure, and though when he glances around to see his crew and the colours they give him, and the words '<em>you make me see the world<em>' come to his lips, he still can't help but think;

_Colour is indescribable._

_Because I cannot describe how much I love you all._

* * *

><p><strong>AN: Been a bit stressed lately, so I spent some time just writing smaller things for myself, and polishing off some older stories. Found this little thing scrawled down in my 'I'm half-asleep but I need to wRITE THIS LINE' notebook, and decided to continue it.<strong>

**I'll get back to requests and chapters for _Above the Waves_ soon enough - sorry for the wait! VnV**

**Thank you for reading! Part two (which is much like this, but different) will either be out this weekend, or sometime next weekend.**


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